Ice Age Once Again
by Sim0ns11
Summary: Manny felt unhappy of his life and out of place in the herd, and wanted to get back to the old days, but he should have been careful what he wished for... [NOTE: Abandoned until further notice.]
1. Chapter 1

**Hello, everyone! First of all, you should know that English is not my first language (I'm Italian) so most likely there will be grammar mistakes (maybe there are mistakes in this sentence, too XD), I'm trying my best but I can't be perfect, so if you see a mistake, please let me know and I'll correct it.**

 **I'd like to thank the user Ninxi who helped me starting to write this story.**

 **Ice Age belongs to Blue Sky Studios**

 **Enjoy! :D**

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 **Manny's POV**

After our last adventure, which was also the most important one, since we saved the world in addition to ourselves, each of the members of the herd spent the days happily and smoothly. In fact, Peaches and Julian left on their honeymoon, Diego constantly took care of Shira, and both were excited about becoming parents soon, Sid spent all his time with Brooke, very happy to have finally gotten a girlfriend, and Buck, Crash, Eddie, Gavin, Gertie and Roger were always on the move, seeking adventure. Ellie found ways to join them, exploiting her opossum abilities to keep up with her brothers and their friends, assisting Shira, or engaging in "hippie" activities with Sid and Brooke.

I was the only one feeling unhappy; despite I made several attempts to spent my time with them, I always ended up being bored (even more than I was when I was alone), or I did something wrong, becoming just a nuisance to the others. And even though I knew it wasn't going to last forever, I couldn't take it anymore, since it was a situation I never faced before. So, one night when I saw a shooting star (which fortunately wasn't a meteor) I wished I could start all over again, to get back to when I was happy, but I wouldn't have to.

The next morning, I woke up in a cave, but as soon as I was able to make out shapes clearly, I noticed it wasn't my cave, even though it looked familiar.

"Ellie? Crash? Eddie? Are you here?" I asked after I stood up. Obviously, I called those who lived in the same cave I did, but I got no answer.

"C'mon guys, come out! If this is supposed to be some type of joke, it's not funny!" I sad loudly, since I thought a joke could have been the only reason for which that was happening. I walked towards the entrance to the cave and, once I came out of there, I immediately recognized where I was, and that confounded me: I was on the continent, in a place which wasn't far from where I met Sid and Diego more than twenty years before.

I tried to make sense out of it, but I couldn't: we left the continent more than three years before, and even then, it was about sixteen years that we were there for the last time.

"But it doesn't make any sense! Why on Earth should I be here?" I asked myself loudly, since there was no one there; then, I scratched my head, and I got the impression that there was less hair on it, and looking at my trunk and my body, which I didn't notice previously since I was confused by the absurd situation, I saw that my hair was indeed shorter.

"What the hell happened to me?!" I asked myself. I saw a frozen puddle and I took the opportunity to see myself in it, and looking at my reflection, I noticed that I was a different kind of mammoth. I didn't know what to do, I was speechless, but then I noted there was something else weird in me, but I wasn't able to figure out what it was. Only by focusing on my features and my eyes, and after taking a "quick look" to confirm, I realized it: I was a female!

I screamed loud enough to scare some birds, perched on a tree a hundred yards from me, which flew away quickly. Again, I was speechless, unable to say even one word.

"It took you long to notice it!" A female voice exclaimed insidiously, but looking around I saw I was alone.

 **End POV**

"W-who said that?" The mammoth asked stuttering, being too upset, scared and confused to say anything else.

"I did it." The voice replied, making the herbivore look around again, obviously without seeing a soul "Forget it, you won't find me because I don't have a body."

"W-what are you, then?"

"It doesn't matter who or what I am, just think of me as a voiceover; but what you need to know is that I'm responsible for what happened to you."

"C-could you elaborate on that?"

"You see, you, your family and the rest of your bizarre herd lived in an universe we can call, er, facilitated, but after all you could tell it was so because of all the deeds you did, which almost reached the limits of what's possible. So, when I've known you didn't like your life and you'd have wanted to start all over again, despite everything you had, I've realized you had to get a lesson. And that's why I brought you here, you're living the day when it all began, but it'll be a lot harder, and you'll stay here forever." The voice explained emotionless.

"B-but what about Ellie? And Peaches? And all the others?" The mammoth asked worried.

"Well, there's something you need to know: in this universe, the animal species not only reach adulthood at different times, as in yours, but also have different life expectancies; in particular, the one of the opossums is a few years, so I can't guarantee that an opossum family was alive when Ellie lost her herd. And obviously, Peaches was never born, and I guess she'll never do, don't forget that you're a female now!"

"Right! Tell me why on Earth I'm a female!" The mammoth exclaimed; "she" already forgot about" her" new gender, because of the unexpected voiceover to arrive. That let the tears which were falling after the new that Ellie could be died and that Peaches doesn't exist to stop.

"Yes, I almost forgot. You know, there's another substantial difference between the mammals in two universes: the ones of yours are all monogamous, while most of the ones in this aren't, and only mothers take care of the children. So, if you were a male, you wouldn't have suffered because of the death of your son and your mate, because you wouldn't have lived with them and so you'd never have known, and you wouldn't have gotten there with the hope of staying away from everyone. I made you a female so that your children were killed by the humans and it made you so disrupted to leave your herd, to want to be alone and to get here."

"But couldn't you turn me in, I don't know, a male mammoth who lost his mother and/or his siblings and became grumpy because of this? Or, er, in a male mammoth who didn't think an ice age was starting and wanted to show everyone he'd have survived in the north without any problem?" The mammoth asked, with a raised eyebrow, questioning the voice's intelligence.

"Oh, of course I could, but it wouldn't have been funny! I'll really enjoy seeing you trying to find the right position to pee or trying to run away from the males which want to mate with you." The voice laughed.

"What?!" The pachyderm asked shocked.

"Never mind." The voice said quickly, continuing whispering "Just be glad winter isn't the mating season."

"Anyway," "Manny" spoke, after sighing in frustration "Why did you turn me in a different kind of mammoth? I thought my species was the only one."

"In fact it is, in your universe, but there are many here, including your previous species, which is called woolly mammoth, and your current one, called giant mammoth. Since you never missed a opportunity to tell your family and friends you were the biggest land mammal, I thought you'd rather have preferred to be it here, too."

"Got it. Well, at least I still hold the record." "She" told her, and then asked sadly "S-so you told me Ellie could be dead, right?"

"Maybe she's, maybe she's not, maybe she got reunited with her family, maybe she's been adopted by someone else and so on, who knows."

As upset as "Manny" was, "she" was relieved Ellie could have been alive, but then he got worried about the fate of two mammals which were very important to him.

"And what about Sid and Diego? Are they here? Am I going to become their best friend again?"

"Just so you know, I'm not as despicable as you think, in fact, I made them have memories of their previous lives, so that you can reunite with them immediately and they'll be with you for years to come. Obviously, they don't know this happened because of your wish, and I'll let you tell them, I'm not a monster."

"Well, thanks." "She" replied, not so happy, because "she" was still talking with who put "her" into the bad situation, and plus it would have been difficult to tell them the truth.

"I know you're mad at me because of what I did you, I get it, but it was necessary to teach you a lesson, trust me, so I hope you'll live as best as you can. For example, I know the guilt that weighs you and Sid down since you come into possession of Pinky, and now you can fix that." The voice said, and for the first time "Manny" didn't look at her as someone who just wanted to hurt or make fun of "her".

"You're right!" "Manny" exclaimed after a brief reflection "I and Sid never forgave ourselves for not pull Pinky's mother out of the water, because, even if it's not sure, perhaps we could have saved her, and the baby wouldn't have grown up without his mother. But now that Diego's not evil, he won't force her to throw herself from the waterfall, and she'll survive!"

"You're starting to get it, Mildred." The voice laughed, taunting the mammoth who was still annoyed by "her" new condition.

"Really funny." "She" said sarcastically "So is Mildred my name?"

"Well, what did you expect? You knew your mother proposed the name Manfred in your universe, so, being a single parent here, she chose a very similar girl's name, more or less with the same meaning."

Before Man-, er, Mildred could even say anything else, she heard several voices, whose volume got louder and louder, until he saw a group of mammals of different species walking together: it was the head of the migration. However, the animals didn't belong to species he knew.

"Wow, what kind of mammals are those?" The mammoth asked interested.

"You see, evolution works differently in this universe, so for every animal of yours, there's another one replacing it here. You can see camels, similar to Shangri Llama, replacing the freaky mammals; the woolly tapirs replacing the starts; the short-armed sloths replacing the glyptos; the long-nosed peccaries, similar to the boar of Gutt's crew, replacing the aardvark; and then the common bisons, similiar to the musk oxen in your universe, replacing the rhinos."

"All right, here we go." Mildred said with determination, running and joining the migration, obviously in the opposite direction, to the dismay of the mammals which started insulting her loudly, but she didn't care: she had a mission to carry out.

* * *

 **Notes**

The story period also changed, 15.000 years ago instead of 20,000 years ago (because humans didn't live in North America at this last period yet).

For all those interested in the animal species:

\- Manny/Mildred: Columbian mammoth (called "giant mammoth because the word "Columbian" has no sense animal language). It was indeed the biggest land mammal 15,000 years ago.

\- Freaky mammal (Macrauchenia, called that in the end credits): replaced with Western camel (called just "camel" because the word "Western" has no sense, too).

\- Start (Palaeotherium, called that in the end credits): replaced with Vero tapir (called "woolly tapir" because it is named after Vero Beach, in Florida, so it would have no sense, and since it was the northernmost tapir species, it makes sense that it was likely woolliest one).

\- Glypto (Glyptodon, called that in the end credits): replaced with Harlan's ground sloth (called "short-armed sloth" because it is named after the paleontologist Richard Harlan , so it would have no sense, and since it had shorter arms than the other sloth species' ones, I chose that name).

\- Rhino (Brontotherium and Embolotherium, called that in the end credits): replaced with Ancient bison (called "common bison" because "Ancient" has no sense and it was the most common bison species at that time).

I thought since they were transported in an universe that was very (but not totally) realistic, the species had to be realistic, too, so I replaced the ones of the movie with others which really lived in parts of North America covered by ice 15,000 ago. I hope you like what I did.

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 **This is the first chapter, I hope you enjoyed it!**

 **So Manny is now a female, named Mildred, but what about Sid and Diego? Will they be different, too? Stay tuned to find out!**

 **I really want to know what you think, and I'm open to suggestions, so please review.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello, Happy New Year, one and all!**

 **Here's the second chapter, I hope you like it!**

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Diego woke up slowly, as he would have done in any other morning, and he was excited about spending another day close to his wife. After years of wondering if it would have been a good idea having children, since the young herbivores were scared of them, now they were celebrated as heroes, and nobody was afraid of them anymore. So, nothing stopped them from raise a family, and they would have become parents soon.

However, something worried Diego: he didn't smell Shira. He would have thought she went hunting, after all, being so stubborn and determined, nothing, even being pregnant, could have stopped her. But this thought didn't last long, since Diego smelled other sabers, which he unfortunately knew well: Soto, Oscar, Zeke and Lenny, his ex-packmates.

Diego jumped up as soon as he realized it, and, looking around, he saw he was indeed with them, which were luckily still asleep, since he didn't make a sound, but, even stranger, he was in the cave where he lived before he left the pack and became friends with Manny and Sid.

 _"I'm definitely dreaming."_ He thought, but when he pinched himself, he felt pain.

 _"What the…?"_ Diego thought, messing with his head _"It's not a dream!"_

"That's right, it's real." A female voice, the same "Mildred" talked to, told him. The saber looked around, trying to find who spoke, but he obviously didn't see anyone. However, he didn't say anything, since the last thing he wanted was to awaken the others.

"Go outside, tiger, and I'll explain everything. Only you can hear me here, but if you'll talk, they'll hear you, and I guess you want to avoid it, don't you?"

 _"Of course."_ He thought, and he walked out of the cave, only stopping when he was sure none of the sabers would have heard him.

"Whatever you are, show yourself!" He exclaimed growling.

"It sounds like you've a nasty temper." She laughed, and continued "I can't show myself, since I'm bodiless, or tell you who or what I am. However, I know you're obviously wondering why you're here; long story short, you, your wife and your weird herd lived in a facilitated universe and so I brought you here, to make you live again all the adventures you had after leaving your pack, and you'll stay here forever."

"But it doesn't make any sense! Why in the world did you do that?" Diego exclaimed upset.

"Er, 'cause I felt like it," She said, to keep the promise she made to Mildred, namely that the mammoth would have been the one to tell her friends why it happened to them.

"It's fun to ruin people's lives, isn't it?" Diego asked angrily.

"Let's say yes." She replied coldly; she didn't do it for that reason, but she had to lie.

So, what am I gonna do? Becoming friends with Manny and Sid, betraying my pack and risking my life once again?" The saber asked upset.

"Not exactly, I'm not that mean, I made your best friends remember their previous lives, so that you have someone who feel the way you do by your side."

"And what about Shira?" He asked worried.

"Well, since giant apes went extinct eighty-five thousand years ago, iceberg ships don't last as long as they do in your universe and the continents already split up, I can't guarantee someone saved her when she ended up in the sea."

"No! But why? What did I ever do to you?!" Diego exclaimed upset, trying to hold back his tears. Being a predator, he was very good at staying calm, even in situations of anxiety and panic, which had been useful to avoid that the other members of the pack were awakened just before, but he wasn't able to withstand when he knew his wife could have died.

"Listen, I know you hate me for doing this, but don't think of it only as a negative experience. I mean, you was able to save Manny, Sid and Pinky, but am I wrong or is there someone who died because you still didn't betray your pack?"

"Pinky's…mother." Diego replied, realizing the opportunity he got.

"That's right, and I know you never forgave yourself for forcing her to jump in the river where she died, letting the baby grow up without her. And now you're living this again, so do the math."

"I won't force her to do it and she'll live!" Diego exclaimed, almost smiling, and then asked "So Soto isn't smarter in this universe, is he?"

"No." The voice laughed "He still wants revenge, but for a different reason."

"And what's that?"

"Well, in your universe your three sisters and the husbands of two of them were killed by the humans, but here the sabers live in all-male and all-female groups, and when you and your brothers left your parents' territory and got here, there were two packs of females with which you could have had children. But one pack was killed by the humans and the other ran away, and since the adjacent territories are filled by other males, stronger than you, you're stuck here and Soto is mad at the humans because they are the reason for which he can't have children."

"I got it. Why does Soto have to be so stupid?! We kill entire families hunting, and no one's ever taken revenge on us, so he's no reason for doing it to them."

"Yeah, why don't you tell him?" The voice asked sarcastically.

"I know, he'd destroy me. And Oscar would help him, he's always been jealous of me, just because I'm stronger than him even if I'm younger."

"And so does he here. The birth order is the same: Soto, Oscar, you, Zeke and Lenny, which, as in your universe, is a scimitar and has been adopted. Lucky for him, he was a few days younger than you all, so your mother was able to raise him."

"Wait, "you all"?" Diego asked confused "Are we quadruplets?"

"Yes, another difference is that the sabers often give birth to more than a cub at a time here."

"OK. Anyway, I gotta find Manny and Sid. I just hope the others don't wake up." The saber said, continuing "Is there anything else I need to know?"

"Um…oh, yes. Your species were called "saber-toothed tigers" in your universe, but here you're just known as "long-toothed cats", since this kind of weapon don't exist yet and normal tigers live far away."

"All right."

"Well, good luck."

"Um, thanks." The saber replied, and looked around him to be sure none of his packmates was listening to them, and then he ran away. What he didn't know was that someone was doing it, hidden behind a rock; when Diego left, the figure got back in the cave quickly.

"Everything is going as I wanted." The voice said laughing, noticing the other cat.

* * *

Mildred had no idea how to find Sid; she checked the tree where he told the mammoth he lived with his family, but it was empty, despite the voice confirmed the sloth was abandoned by his relatives here, too. So she headed to the place where they met each other for the first time, hoping that he was smart enough to do the same thing.

However, she forgot one small detail: she knew Sid woke up, the first time, because Manny almost made him fall off his branch by making the earth move walking. So, since it didn't happen here, she didn't know how soon the sloth would have woken up. The mammoth sighed, looking at the view from the cliff.

 _"I'm sorry guys, I shouldn't have done this to you."_ She thought with tears in his eyes, drying them with her trunk. Then, she heard a scream, which she knew very well, that was becoming louder and louder until someone bumped into her legs. When she turned, she saw a sloth, which was clearly Sid, but he was very different: his head had a "normal" shape, resembling a bear's, and had small ears; his tail was much longer, enough to touch the ground, and he was bigger, half the mammoth's height. The only weird thing was that his limbs were very short, disproportionate to the body.

"Oh, I'm sorry, miss." He apologized.

" Sid, it's me, Manny. Glad to see you." She replied annoyed.

"Me too. Wait, what?! But why?" The sloth asked confused.

"You see, apparently, in this stupid universe male mammoths are solitary, so if I had been, I wouldn't have been sad because of my family's death and I wouldn't have gotten here. So I'm stuck in this ridiculous body!" The mammoth exclaimed angrily.

"Oh, come on, you're pretty." Sid laughed.

"Say another word and I'll let those two impale you." Mildred threatened him, pointing at the bisons who chased him. They were surely Carl and Frank's counterparts, and the sloth had clearly been able to annoy them this time too, something didn't surprise his friend.

"No, please, save me!" He exclaimed, hugging her left front leg.

"Get off me!" She exclaimed, dropping him on the ground; something reminded her their first meet.

"Come on, you're making a scene." Carl said.

"We'll just take our furry piñata and go." Frank added, while Sid hid behind Mildred, as he did the first time.

"Okay, listen, I'm sorry for what I said, but you're my only hope. Sloths have long claws to defend themselves here, but I'm a disproportionate dwarf, so I have short limbs and my claws aren't long enough." Sid explained.

"Look, we're gonna break your neck so you don't feel a thing. How's that?" Carl told the sloth, and Frank nodded smiling, liking the idea.

"I know you aren't gonna eat him after you kill him, since you're vegetarians, and you know, I don't like animals that kill for pleasure." The mammoth said menacingly, hoping that bisons were lazier or less determined than rhinos. This made Sid smile because he realized that she would have saved him again.

"Save it for a mammal that cares." Carl replied angrily.

"OK, if either of you make it across that sinkhole in front of you, you get the sloth." Mildred dared them, which looked at the ground, that resembled quicksand here too, worried, while she thought _"Sid's not stupid enough to make the same mistake twice…oh, wait."_

"That's right, you losers, you take one step and you're dead!" Sid exclaimed, throwing a pebble, that bounced on the ground several times, making the bisons realize that it wasn't quicksand. Carl smiled maliciously, while Frank looked at them as if to say "you're pathetic". "

"Why, Sid, why?" Mildred said exasperated.

"I apologize." Sid laughed nervously, and then he ran behind his friend.

"I should warn you a mammoth isn't strong enough to hold them off the ground here, and if you'll fall off this cliff, you'll be lucky to have almost all your bones broken." The voice explained to Mildred and Sid, while Carl and Frank weren't able to hear her.

"Get them!" The bisons screamed, running towards the mammoth.

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 **Rewiew response:**

 **Ninxi : Thank you!**

 **dinofelis : Thank you! Diego would betray his pack because, as Manny/Mildred and Sid do, he remebers his previous life, while I found a way to make the sloth still clumsy, as you must have read. I chose, for the first chapter, the species who most resembled the ones in the movie (plus, glyptodonts didn't live in North America 15.000 years ago, so I had to replace them with other slow creatures, the ground sloths, while the long-horned bisons went extinct 21.000 years ago, so I used the Ancient bisons to replace the rhinos). **

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**Notes**

Diego and Sid belong to the same species they did in the movies, but the first one's species obviously can't have the same name, I know "long-toothed cat" isn't original, but it's the best I could come up with. You got a better one? Please tell me.

And Sid had to resemble a real ground sloth (he is still a Jefferson's ground sloth, since it was the only one living in parts of North America covered by ice in addition to the Harlan's ground sloth), so I made him have disproportionate dwarfism (achondroplasia), because the only known wild dwarf animal (an Asian elephant) had this kind of dwarfism, so that he was still clumsy.

Anyway, it is still unknown how saber-toothed tigers lived: they could have been solitary, they could have lived in monogamous pairs or in all-male and all-female groups. I chose this last because it was the only one that fit with the story.

* * *

 **Will Diego find his friends? Will Mildred and Sid defeat Carl and Frank once again? Who heard what Diego said? Stay tuned to find out!**

 **I really want to know what you think, and I'm open to suggestions, so please review.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello, everyone. Sorry I'm late, but I've had a sort of writer's block and then some setbacks being back at school.**

 **Anyway, enjoy! :D**

* * *

Carl and Frank hit Mildred's tusks with their heads and started pushing her back. The sloth screamed as soon as he noticed they were about to fall off the cliff, holding his friend's left leg with all his might. He thought she wouldn't have been able to defeat them, but he changed his mind when he felt himself move forward and saw the mammoth pull them back a few feet away.

Sid rejoiced, but he noticed both the bisons were charging Mildred, so he curled on himself, ready for the worst, but the mammoth also ran towards them. She grabbed Carl's left horn dropping him on his side and dragging and pushing him against some rocks. The sloth was amazed by how he just saw, but then he realized Frank was running towards him, and screamed, but something stopped the bison. Mildred, using his tusks, picked his hind limbs up, like they were playing a wheelbarrow race, and pushed him against the rocks.

"Whoo-hoo! We did it!" Sid exclaimed, hugging his friend's trunk.

"Come on, we gotta find Diego and figure out a plan to save Pinky from the sabers again." The mammoth said coldly, walking away.

"Wow, I can see that being a female's made you prone to mood swings, Mrs.…er, what's your name here?" The sloth asked.

"I won't tell you." She replied angrily.

"It's Mildred." The voice told him laughing.

The mammoth sighed annoyed.

"Perfect, the nicknames still fit, like Milly the Moody Mammoth, or Milly the Melancholy, or Milly the-" Sid interrupted when his friend took a step towards him menacingly. He climbed a nearby tree, but it broke up since the sloth now weighed about one and a half thousand pounds, so he fell down sore. Anyway, he was able to get back up in a few seconds and to reach her.

"Bizarre, isn't it? I'm a dwarf in this universe, otherwise I would have been too slow, like the other sloths. Oh, you know, male sloths here form bachelor herds, and I was in one of them, with my brother, my uncle and our two friends. I bet male mammoths do the same, and so do the bisons, given Carl and Frank, and …" Sid talked the entire time.

* * *

Diego was running as fast as he could in the trees; he couldn't afford to waste time, since he knew his brothers would most likely have woken up soon, and if he was gone for too long, they would have looked for him. And if they saw him talking with Manny and Sid, that would have been the end of it. All of a sudden, he heard an annoying voice he knew very well, just before a disgusting smell filled the air, making his eyes sting. And for the first time, he was happy about it: he came out of the forest quickly right in front of a mammoth and a sloth.

"Diego! Thank goodness you're OK!" Sid exclaimed happily when he saw the saber, running towards him and hugging him. Not remembering his new size, he ended up dropping him on the ground and crushing him. Diego immediately thought of a way to scare the sloth to death. As serious as the situation was, he couldn't help himself.

"Get off me sloth I've never met before or you'll be my lunch!" Diego growled, pretending he didn't know Sid, who screamed panicked and rushed behind Mildred.

"Ah, you fell for it!" The saber exclaimed laughing.

"Very funny." The sloth replied sarcastically.

"Did you talk with the voice too?" Diego asked.

"Unfortunately, yes." Milly replied, while her friend's eyes opened wide when he heard her voice.

"M-Manny, you're a f-fem…" The saber stuttered.

"Yes, male mammoths are solitary in this universe so the only way to make me suffer for my family's death and go north was, apparently, to turn me into a female."

"And her name here is Mildred, shortly Milly." Sid added, getting a bump on his head from the pachyderm.

"I'm sorry, pal. I can't really believe all this is happening to us … I was about to become a father and now I most likely won't even be a husband." Diego said sadly.

"Shira could be…?" The saber nodded before the mammoth could finish the question, so she sighed and continued "Ellie too."

"Brooke too." Sid told them with tears in his eyes.

"And all because a stupid entity enjoys destroying our lives!" The tiger growled.

"Yeah, you're mean!" Sid exclaimed looking up at the sky.

"Stop it, guys." Milly interrupted them, fearing the voice would have revealed the truth if she couldn't stand being insulted "It doesn't make sense to pick on her, the only important thing is that we have the opportunity to avoid the death of Pinky's mother."

"Yes, but it won't be that easy. It's not enough for me to fail the attack intentionally. If I do, we'll be forced to run away, to avoid that Soto kills me, and I'm sure he won't come after me. He'll still follow the humans to get revenge, and he could do it." Diego explained.

"So what do you suggest we do?" Sid asked.

"All we have to do is to protect them until they reach the Glacier Pass, they'll be safe on the other side."

"But how? I mean, I don't think it'd be a good idea to make the journey with the baby risking our life again, we could die if we're less lucky." Milly said.

At that moment, two big cats appeared in the forest, starting to listen to their conversation, and no one of them noticed it.

"Couldn't we help the humans to fight the sabers when they'll attack the camp? I think we can defeat them if we do that all together." Sid proposed.

"It's too risky, Sid, if the humans don't understand we're on their side, they'll attack us and an only spear in the right place would be enough to kill me or you." Diego replied.

"Right."

"Let's face it, there's no safe way to help. But as long as Soto knows Pinky's alive, he'll do whatever to kill him." The mammoth affirmed.

"I got an idea: what if Pinky's not alive?" Sid said.

"What?!" His friend exclaimed shocked with one voice.

"I mean, if we make Soto think the baby's dead, he won't follow the humans anymore because he couldn't get revenge." He explained.

Milly and Diego stared at their friend. They were really surprised he said that.

"It can work!" The mammoth exclaimed.

"I hate to admit it, but that's a great idea, buddy!" The saber added.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" The voice suddenly said, scaring the mammals, especially Sid, who almost screamed.

"And what's that?" Diego asked.

"Well, it is me, or is there someone who'll protect the baby?." The voice explained.

"Pinky's mother." Milly said.

"Exactly."

"We can't take the baby from her, it'd be despicable!" Sid affirmed.

"I know, but I really don't see any other way." The mammoth told him.

"We need a way to separate Pinky from his mother; even if I could take him, she won't let me go, and I mean no harm to her." Diego said.

"I'll help you, she'll have to run away when a mammoth will attack her." Milly told him.

"Then you'll come with me to giving him back to his parents so that she knows you're not bad." The sloth added.

"All right, so I'll chase Pinky's mother and I'll take him, then I'll run behind a rock where you'll be hidden. You'll threaten her and go after her until you can be sure that she'll get back to the camp. Then, when Soto'll reach me, I'll tell him a mammoth killed the baby, and when he'll get where you was to be sure, you'll have to pretend you really did it."

"Don't you think Soto could want to get revenge on Milly?" Sid asked.

"No, he'll consider her killing Pinky as an indirect revenge. So it can work, good idea, guys." The voice answered.

"OK. And now?" Sid said.

"Well, I gotta get back to the others before they wake up, Soto'll tell me how he wants to get revenge on the humans this afternoon, not knowing I already know it." Diego replied.

"While you, Sid, and I should get away from here, heaven forbid that the sabers decide to go for breakfast." Milly added.

"True." Sid laughed nervously.

"Remember, the attack will be at dawn; take positions behind the rocks so that they can't notice you from the camp. Also think about a way to convince Soto that the baby is "really dead". When his mother and I will get there, we'll put the plan into action." The saber told them.

"All right." The mammoth said with determination.

"Let's do it!" The sloth exclaimed.

* * *

"I can't believe that Diego is betraying us! He was the only one I trusted!" Soto growled, running towards the cave where he lived.

"Will you kill him when he'll be back here?" Lenny asked, keeping up barely.

Lenny was the one who woke up and heard Diego and the voice's conversation, and he warned Soto quickly. But he simply told him their brother ran away suspiciously, guessing that the pack leader wouldn't have believed that Diego came from another universe. It had already been hard enough for Lenny to believe it. When they, hidden in the forest, got close enough to heard what Milly, Sid and Diego were saying, they weren't talking about the universes anymore. Plus, Soto mistook "the voice's voice" for the mammoth's, so he just thought Diego already figured out how he wanted to get revenge on the humans, and now he wanted to stop him with the help of the two herbivores.

"No, it wouldn't make sense, since we couldn't get revenge on the humans anymore if we were down to four." Soto explained, after they reached the entry of the cave and stopped, without going in it.

"So what's your plan?" The fat cat asked.

"First of all, not a word to Oscar and Zeke about this. Considering how much they envy Diego, they'll do everything to get rid of him."

"OK, you can trust me." Lenny replied.

"I hope so. Which makes me wonder; I was wrong to trust Diego, so I most likely was also wrong to treat you worse than the others. So I'll give you an opportunity to show me you could be the next second in command." Soto told him.

"M-Me?" He stuttered shocked.

"You hate being the omega, don't you?" The pack leader asked him.

Soto was right. From an external point of view, Lenny's position, the omega, in the pack could seem the best. He never had to hunt, since he was considered incapable to do it (especially because he was a scimitar-toothed cat that, by nature, preyed different kinds of mammals compared to a saber-toothed tiger), but he always got a meal. That's why he grew that fat. But being an omega made him the favorite target of all his brothers, and no one was submitted to him. Plus, the task of who was in that position was to avoid fights between the other members, and when he wasn't able to do it, he got punished, in constant danger of being driven out of the pack. All that had contributed to make him hate being the omega.

"W-What do I have to do?" He asked, taking the opportunity.

"Be patient, Leonard, your big brother will figure out a plan." Soto answered.

Then, they noticed two bisons within walking distance.

"Oh, Carl, so what do we do now that we've lost a horn apiece?" Frank, walking with his conspecific, complained.

"If I could just teach that mammoth a lesson! That'd show her not to stop us from torturing that sloth!" Carl exclaimed angrily.

Apparently, the impact with the rocks against which Milly pushed the bisons made Carl's left horn and Frank's right horn break. They weren't scared of the big cats since they weren't strong enough to attack the bulls.

"You know what, I think I just found it." Soto smiled maliciously.

* * *

 **Review response:**

 **[Italian] Valery: Ciao, anche io sono contento di trovare una lettrice italiana. Sì, vorrei ripercorrere gli eventi di tutta la saga, almeno fino al terzo film visto che nel quarto e nel quinto è Scrat a creare i problemi (deriva dei continenti ed asteroide) e ovviamente in un universo realistico come questo non potrebbe.**

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 **Notes**

As I wrote in the previous chapter, it's still unknown how saber-toothed tigers lived, so I used the hierarchy of the wolf packs for theirs. But it's true that the omega is the lowest position, and these wolves really have to avoid fights between their packmates and are often at risk of being driven out of the pack.

* * *

 **So Soto and Lenny know the truth and they met Carl and Frank. What will they do? Will Milly, Sid and Diego be able to save the baby? Stay tuned to find out!**

 **I really want to know what you think, and I'm open to suggestions, so please review.**


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